Health and Safety
Executive / Commission
Nuclear
LLC reports
Foreword
Inspection
Routine matters
Non-routine matters
Regulatory activities
This report is issued as part of the Health and Safety Executive's commitment to make information about inspection and regulatory activities relating to the above site available to the public. It is for distribution to members of the Hunterston A Power Station Local Liaison Committee and covers activities associated with the regulation of safety at Hunterston A Power Station. These reports are distributed quarterly. Site Inspectors of HM Nuclear Installations Inspectorate attend LLC meetings and will be happy to respond to questions raised there by members of the LLC. Any other person wishing to inquire about matters covered by this report should contact the HSE, Nuclear Directorate Information Centre on 0151 - 951 - 4103.
1 The Site Inspector made three visits to Hunterston A during the period April to June these visits were on:
8 - 9 May
13 - 15 May
22 - 23 May
2 Four inspectors from the Bulgarian nuclear regulatory authority took part in the inspection 13 to 15 May as part of a European Union sponsored exchange on inspection practice for decommissioning reactor sites. A specialist inspector supported the inspection of 22 to 23 May to assist in gathering evidence and taking statements in respect of a failure of lifting equipment.
3 Limited routine inspection has been completed this quarter.
4 Inspections completed this quarter under the site inspection plan included ones against Licence Conditions, 22 (Modifications), 23 (Operating Rules), and 6 (Records). The outcome of these inspections was in the main acceptable but some deficiencies were identified and reported to the Licensee for attention. The lack of progress in making improvements to the arrangements for compliance with Licence Conditions 35 (Decommissioning) and 19 & 20 (New Build & Control of Design) has been raised with the Licensee. Improvements are becoming a matter of urgency.
5 The site's progress with the development and introduction of contingency arrangements for accident response has been noted by the Inspectorate. The Licensee has provided a programme for the introduction of these arrangements latter in the year. The inspectorate has also followed the site's progress with the provision of revised emergency arrangements.
6 Interim milestones have been provided to the Inspectorate to allow decommissioning progress to be monitored. However, it has still not been possible to arrange detailed discussions on the details of the programme nor progress the development of adequate arrangements for management of the programme. This is being pursued at a company level.
7 Despite the efforts made by the site to improve the management and control of work and lifting in particular a further incident occurred. In this case an item of lifting equipment failed allowing its load to fall, it thus differs significantly from previous events in which the load disintegrated.
8 This failure was investigated by the inspectorate to determine the circumstances of the event, and compliance with the law. The investigation included taking statements from those directly involved in the work, maintenance of a crane in the pond.
9 The investigation identified and confirmed clear failures to comply with the law in particular the health and safety at work etc act and the lifting operations and lifting equipment regulations. An improvement notice was issued as a result of the investigation in respect of sections 2 and 3 of the health and safety at work act and regulations 9(3) and 11(2) of lifting operations and lifting equipment regulations.
10 The waterside deplanting project was inspected, the significant improvement made to manual handling activity and lifting was noted. There were other improvements, e.g. the identification of cutting locations, that are considered as examples of good practice. Inspection of the waste protocol and the arrangements set down in MCP 16 were found to be satisfactory.
11 The Inspectorate has power under the Licence to issue Consents, Approvals and Directions. In addition the Inspectorate uses Licence Instruments to issue Specifications and Agreements under the conditions attached to the Licence. No legal documents have been issued under the Licence during this period.
Published on the HSE web site 22 January 2004